As promised, here's my report/review on the Gold package ($800, 28 - 34 promotional venues, custom paid FB advertising). This is BookRank's next-to-highest tier (Diamond, at $1500 is the highest).
DETAILS: this was for the launch of a new urban fantasy book that came out on Jan. 1. Very clear UF book (e.g. not PNR). I've written two other trilogies under this pen name. The stack ran from Jan 1 - 7, during which time the book was $0.99. It was in KU; KENP of 380+ pages; I didn't notify my email list or do anything else during that time. I did not run any PPC.
I booked it on Nov. 19, which gave Ram about a 40 day lead time to organize the promo stack before release day.
SERVICE: easy to book. Ram handled everything, then sent me a very clear PDF with the sites booked and the dates. When there was a minor scheduling problem with one of the sites (not his fault), he handled it and sent me the new info within hours. Fast, painless, professional.
SITES BOOKED: ENT/EBookHounds/Choosy/Read Cheaply* (DAY 1) | BettyBookFreak/AwesomeGang Deluxe (DAY 2) | BookBarbarian*/Book Gorilla/Geektastic (DAY 3) | BargainBooksy*/EBSoda (DAY 4) | eReader Cafe BoTD/KND/Fussy (DAY 5) | Booksends/GP/FKBT (DAY 6) | EBStage/Just Kindle Books (DAY 7)
Total sites booked by Ram: 16 sites. Some of these are for multiple sites (Awesome Gang Deluxe, for example, I think posts to three or four sites).
* = booked myself
CUSTOM ADVERTISING:
RESULTS: 361 sales, 18,763 page reads. Revenue was probably $180 - $220 and change. Profit was not expected; you really do something like this for rank, stickiness, and a tail; peak rank was #2264 on DAY 4. I'd say that was more because of the cumulative effects, rather than that day's particular line-up, which only had two sites. Rank at the end (DAY 7) was #3705.
Important - this book didn't have any reviews until the last day of the stack. That would have no doubt improved the results. It was up for pre-order before the promo (so I had a live link) and garnered 41 pre-orders over about 40 days, but (obviously) wasn't on any sort of hot new release lists or anything.
COMMENTS: you're buying convenience here, which Ram doesn't make a secret. If you're tight on funds, you can save the fee and organize the stack yourself - there's no secret sauce (nor any claim of there being any, for that matter). I think this is useful for two types of authors: 1) those who don't understand the concept of stacking/organizing a promo and are intimidated by all the options/variables. This essentially guarantees that you have something workable. 2) those who don't want to spend 3 hours filling in forms or keeping track of requirements/payments and so forth. If you're making $50/hr from your work, then even with the fee, you likely come out ahead, although you sacrifice significant flexibility in what sites are used/what order the promo goes off (Ram does have an a la carte option where you can select your own sites; this is a specific review of the Gold service).
There were three things I would consider negatives.
One, the "Custom Paid Advertising on Facebook": the only ad I got sent was the one above. I'm not sure if Ram ran others. I was not expecting much, really, in this department, nor was it the reason I booked the service. However, linking to the book on Amazon and having Facebook pull the cover in automatically from the link, and then using a headline that says $0.99 is a rather generous (if technically correct) interpretation of "custom," unless there's some insanely complex audience targeting going on behind the scenes. Ram clearly has a lot of orders, so I don't think hyper-custom and managed PPC ad campaigns are on the table. Nonetheless, if that's what's on offer, I would humbly suggest nixing that from the advertising entirely. I don't think this added any value; if it had been removed, and if the price had stayed the same ($800), I wouldn't have batted an eyelash. Since it was advertised, however, that made me curious and hopeful, perhaps, that there would be something interesting in the works; alas, I ended up underwhelmed.
Two, I wouldn't book a couple of these sites at all, even if I was chasing rank. To be fair, it's promising a promo stack, not "most efficient use of funds stack" or "the most selective stack." Not all sites will accept new releases (my other books do have a bunch of reviews, so many sites will accept a new release based on this track record, however). That means perhaps other less optimal sites had to be substituted. But something to bear in mind if ad dollars are at an absolute premium.
Three, I probably would have ended with the big hitters/more sites, rather than spaced them out. In fairness, this isn't entirely in Ram's control (ENT, for example, is pretty random about what dates they're willing to give you), and he didn't know where I'd scheduled in my pieces of the equation. I also could have given him a narrower range of dates, which would have made them spaced closer together. That being said, a huge part of the stickiness factor, I think, is coming off at peak rank, or close to it - that didn't happen here. In fact, DAY 7 was my lowest sales/rank day. In this case, not a big deal, because the book is still $0.99 as I ramp up my PPC spend (and send out my newsletter/social media and so forth). But not optimal if that was actually the end of the promo, IMO.
OVERALL: this service does exactly what it says. Ram delivers the promo stack quickly, is professional, and provides excellent customer service. There's nothing here you can't do yourself, but you're not buying secret sauce; you're buying convenience. For certain authors, it makes a lot of sense to outsource a tedious and annoying series of tasks to a service like this and focus on other things; for others, it's a great way to get your feet wet without fear of messing up logistics while you learn about promotion. I would recommend the service to these people.
If you know what sites you like/work and want maximum control over your promo's schedule, then using a service like Book Rank (and especially the Bronze/Silver/Gold/Diamond packages) probably doesn't make sense, which is likely why my comments are less enthusiastic than many of the glowing reviews here. Just know what author bucket you fall into, then make your decision accordingly.
Nick
About the closest you can get is with a Featured Bookbub promotion.
